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Sense & Sustainability: Saving the planet, one ply at a time

From eco-awards to water effciency, Cascades is changing the face of disposable paper products

By Vanessa Farquharson, National Post


For safety, security and hygiene purposes, it’s rare that a company will open its factory doors to the general public. But some of Canada’s greener businesses are realizing why a bit of transparency can be a great thing.

Suzanne Blanchet, the president of Cascades, which manufactures recycled paper products, recently invited a handful of environment reporters to the company’s processing mill in Candiac, Que., for a first-hand look at how its paper towels, facial tissues and toilet paper are made.

From the moment I walked into the vast storage room, where a middle-aged man was riding around on a vintage cargo tricycle in between towering rolls of one-ply paper, I was nothing short of impressed; moments later, when charming mill manager Jean-David Tardiff began explaining all the models of sustainability while dodging radio-controlled Wall-E robots on their way to the shredding station, it was hard not to smile — this was straight out of a how-things-are-made segment on Polka Dot Door.

A bit of context: Cascades is one of the country’s top manufacturers and distributers of 100% recycled paper, which gets turned into a variety of things we often don’t notice, from the pages of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to the napkins at Wendy’s. Even the well-known eco brand Seventh Generation has all of its paper towels and toilet paper made by this company.

Among the many green achievements of which Cascades can boast:

z They consume five-times less water as the industry average — every drop is reused up to 40 times.

z They use hydrogen peroxide and sodium hydrosulphite instead of a more toxic chlorine bleach.

z They recover about 75% of all internal factory waste (the company’s plants in Europe actually recover 100%) and use all the floor scrapings and excess trimmings in the pulping process.

z They reuse sludge from the de-inking machine as filler in multi-layered cardboard and in agriculture to improve soil quality; research is also underway to determine whether it can be used as a bio-gas recovery agent in landfills.

z They’ve installed technology that automatically shuts off the engines in their delivery trucks after four minutes of idling; employees are asked to only drive fuel-efficient cars (no Hummers are allowed in the parking lot).

z And finally, every year, one member of their staff is declared a Cascades Eco-Hero; in 2008, it was Dany Couture from the Water Treatment Plant in nearby Kingsey Falls, Que., who rides his bike to work, composts all of his food waste and recovers grey water from his washing machine.

Walking around the main offices, it’s also clear that Cascades isn’t solely focused on greening its production line — a holistic mentality is evident from the battery recycling containers on the walls to the reusable kitchen utensils. As marketing manager Danielle Lamarre explained, albeit with some hyperbole, “The first thing we do with all our employees is inject green into their blood.”

However, the nerd in me was ultimately less interested in reusable utensils than in the technical nitty-gritty of paper-towel manufacturing. It was fascinating to learn what happens when, say, a school teacher doesn’t properly separate a plastic spiral binding from a notebook before tossing it into the recycling bin (the answer: Cascades ends up doing it during the sorting process) and to see how a soupy pulp gets dried and pressed into a thin, sail-like sheet of paper before being layered, perforated, rolled and cut into sections at speeds of up to 100 kilometres per hour.

Tardiff also explained why milk cartons don’t make great toilet paper, why a new trend in printing with UV ink is throwing a big wrench into their manufacturing process and why it’s easy to develop a thick paper towel but not so easy to achieve both thickness and softness.

I learned that we still associate whiteness with cleanliness — only 10% of Cascades’ consumers prefer the unbleached, brown paper towels — and that it takes about two hours from start to finish to make a single roll of paper towel.

By the end of the tour, I was reminded of just how much effort goes into a single household product. I also felt grateful that my need for sanitary cooking surfaces wasn’t completely at odds with the environment (although it’s technically greener to avoid using paper towels in the first place, I challenge anyone to opt for a reusable dishcloth when cleaning up cat barf).

Surely there are plenty of other Canadian manufacturing companies devoting just as much attention to reducing their carbon footprint as Cascades; but if this is the case, it would be reassuring to both consumers and investors if a few more of them opened their factory doors.

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